Five Song Friday: A Message from Our Greatest Dead President
Episode #132: Unfortunate Faces, Canada Bags and Sleeve Shaming
Hello friend, I am the fabulous ghost of Abe Lincoln.
Why is the 16th President of the United States sending you an email?
I appear every Day of the Dead during an election year with an urgent message from beyond the grave.
This year is more urgent than most.
You may be a little freaked out right now, but you can relax. I’m not real. You aren’t crazy or dead or dying or anything like that.
I’m just a figment of your imagination. A voice in your head. A hallucination triggered by the stress of too many political ads and fistfuls of Halloween candy.
Why am I wearing so much eye makeup? And why are you imagining that my voice sounds like a mix of Gregory Peck from To Kill a Mockingbird and The Dude from The Big Lebowski?
Those are questions for your therapist.
What’s important right now is that you listen closely to what I have to say.
Fair warning, my words are going to get salty. But desperate times call for frank language.
Sorry not sorry.
My fellow Americans, your current political system is a sucktastic disaster. Decency is dead and campaign rhetoric is off the rails.
No cap people, you need to check yourself before you wreck yourself.
I speak from experience.
Life during my administration got a little cuckoo batshit bananas. You remember the Civil War, right? Brother against brother?
One side was all like, “We want slaves!” and the other side was like, “No! You guys are the worst!”
And then it was four straight years of bang-bang-bang and stab-stab-stab. Bloodiest US conflict in history. More dead than both World Wars, Korea, Vietnam, and the Revolutionary War combined.
Then I came in and said, “Knock it off! BOTH of you! This aggression will not stand, man.”
Lee surrendered. I freed the slaves. Everybody hugged it out.
Thanks to my mad mediation skills, our democracy survived. You’re welcome!
And things were going good for like, 150 years. You guys invented flat-screen TVs and vegetarian hot dogs and it seemed like the sky was the limit.
But today, the old rift has returned. Extreme division is back, baby!
The shit has, once again, hit the fan.
And to be clear, when I say “hit the fan,” you shouldn’t picture a lonely turd lobbed into the lazy blades of a retro desktop fan. What’s happening now is way beyond that.
Where you are today is more like explosive diarrhea blasted volcano-style into an industrial ceiling fan on HIGH. Imagine a busted fire hydrant blowing hot butt fudge into a wind tunnel. A monsoon of chocolate rain… as if all the angels in heaven ate bad Mexican food and none of them made it to the bathroom.
You feel me? It’s no bueno. Super gross.
I’d love to swoop in and make everything better again. But I can’t help this time.
For one, I’m just a glitch in your mental matrix. I have no physical form. I am a phantom in your inbox.
Second, even if I could somehow help, I’m not sure I’d want to. The last time I rescued the Union, my reward was a bullet to the head.
This one is on you. You guys have to unfuck yourself.
You want to save democracy? Put on your big-person pants and take out the garbage.
The good news is that you don’t have to be a brilliant political intellectual leader like me. You don’t have to be super tall with zero-percent body fat and a dope-ass beard.
All you have to do is vote.
See you on the other side!
Five Song Friday #132
“Magnetic” - Tunde Adebimpe
You had me at “new single from the lead singer of TV On the Radio.” Seriously, you can stop talking. I’m sold. Take my money. Take my pants. Whatever you need.
“My Ugly” - Cloudfodder
I thought the singer was being a little hard on himself here, but then I Googled him and… YIKES.*
“Don’t You Worry” - Jim Noir
We’re all anxious about what happens on Tuesday. Or Wednesday. Or three months later, once the Supreme Court decides that we need a do-over. All we can do is cast a ballot and cross our fingers. Don’t you worry… but pack a go-bag for Canada just in case.
“Little Guitars” - Van Halen
Full disclosure: I had Van Halen posters on my bedroom wall as a teenager. I even bought a crappy airbrush set and the only thing I ever made was a sloppy, sleeveless t-shirt with a shit version of the Diver Down album cover. I wore it to school ONCE and have never forgotten the stranger in the lunchroom who said “nice shirt” with such potent middle-school sarcasm that it delivered a kill shot to my self-confidence that I have yet to recover from.
“Cleopatras” - Warmduscher, COUCOU CHLOE
This is definitely a weird song, but we live in weird times and not everything has to be a melodramatic love ballad to Travis Kelce. Open your ears. Expand your mind. Feel the burn.
“A fool and his money are soon elected” - Kinky Friedman (Born November 1, 1944)
Thanks for reading!
Sincerely,
DJ CrankyPete
*This is a joke. I am not mean.